Question for the pro's

what prevents making the pieces cut on the TS from 1/16 – 1/8” larger than finished size and squaring them with a jointer and thicknessing them with a planer?

-- there's a solution to every problem.......you just have to be willing to find it.

Toolie. It’s complex. Most of the rough cut lumber I have is 15/16, give or take. If I were to cut 2 inch slices, I’d rip them in half and have two one inch slices after I bend them of course. They come out of the bender very straight so I don’t have to do much more than sand them down. I’m just wondering if the band saw would be a better choice or if it would get gnarly.

-- Failure does not stop me, it makes me try harder..... because I'm crazy.

Have you a drum or wide belt sander? If so rip over sized and finish with the sander.

-- Alaskan's for Global warming!

A good band saw is preferred simply because you are reducing waste. But from an accuracy standpoint, if your TS is anything like mine, it will be more accurate than the bandsaw. The roughness of the wood shouldn’t be an issue…I’d think you’d need a jointed side regardless.

If you are going to do laminations, a planer will not work well for really thin or figured stock. I’d buy or build a drum sander. I picked mine up that past weekend and I know it is merely the beginning of a long love affair. :)

-- jay, www.allaboutastro.com

Oh, and I’m far from a pro. :)

-- jay, www.allaboutastro.com

Cosmicsniper. I’ve been using a couple of ROS to finish them. It rounds the edges and smooths them out. Most of the wood is pretty much right on when I glue it up so not much of anything needs to be done.
Right now I have 5 strips of red oak and walnut mixed in the mold. I haven’t glued it up yet, just get it used to the shape first. I’ll post some photo’s later.

-- Failure does not stop me, it makes me try harder..... because I'm crazy.

i have joined the edges of the board first
and rip them slightly over
joint next one
rip
joint next one
etc.
then on a sled of 3/4 board
with a stop across it (glued down)
run them thru the planer
or surface sander
or just do the same
flipping them over for both sides
the last pass your finished size

if using the planer for this
i watch the grain
so as not to rip it up
in the sander it doesn’t mater to much

easy does it

-- david - only thru kindness can this world be whole . If we don't succeed we run the risk of failure. Dan Quayle

Unless you’ve got a really good bandsaw, I wouldn’t even consider trying to resaw a whole load of strips. It only takes the blade to wander a little and you’ll be cursing. It will waste just as much material as the table saw and leave you more work getting the faces good again.
A thin kerf blade in the TS would be my approach to this, true you’re taking out 2.2mm of a kerf, but you only need the barest of clean-ups to get a good glue surface.
When you are ripping these thin strips, get a good square edge on the jointer first, rip it, put your strip aside, joint the ripped face of the plank again, rip another strip off again, and carry on like that – this way you already have one good surface on the strip and you can feed them all through the planer one after the other when they are cut.
I have often bent laminations around a fairly tight radius – you need to go thinner with the material to do this and to help it you can do a quick steam bend by laying them all out flat, lay a wet towel on top and iron the area to be bent – you want to be able to hear the crack and spit of the iron and steam coming off the towel, then gather up your pieces, put them together and part bend them to the shape they are going to be.

-- Do or do not, there is no try

Thanks Renners. I’m not doing any tight curves at the moment, but I usually soak them in hot water in the tub for an hour or so and they work like spaghetti.

-- Failure does not stop me, it makes me try harder..... because I'm crazy.

Try the iron trick Russell, it’s instant and the wood dries much more quickly.

-- Do or do not, there is no try

Russell I rip allot of 1/8” strips for for some of my products My secret for ripping lies in a good blade on the table saw and a good feather board. I can now measure my strips with a micrometer to plus or minus 1/128 of my desired size. and make sure the blade is clean, I can sand out saw marks with 220 after assembly

I believe the key to doing bent lamination is having a good bandsaw that is properly set up and tuned and the proper blade. Cutting laminations from a sheer physics standpoint on a table saw is dangerous business, plus perfectly good material is being wasted hand over fist. If bent lamination work is something that you intend to do more of, then either setting up the bandsaw you have for fine work or buying one capable of doing fine work is a must. I would be happy to talk more about tune-up with you as it might pertain the to bandsaw you currently own.

As an aside I do as much work on my bandsaw as on my table saw, and perhaps more. I don’t know of any professional woodworkers, myself obviously included, who utilize a table saw to cut lamination strips for, mainly, the reasons I enumerated above.

-- -Scott, Wildwood, GA